This week-end a much appreciated doggy friend (her dog and mine hang out in the same circles) and I were discussing the meaning of HELP. We were talking about energetic “vampirism”, the person who asks for help, who receives it, who enjoys getting it, but can’t or won’t to reciprocate, keeps asking for more without contributing, like a bottomless pit.

I was saying how important it is to know how to give help those who make good use of it, who put it in practice, who are grateful for it, in short, who deserve it. My friend’s question was then, “What about altruism?”… and her question sparked off this blog entry. Every moment is an opportunity to improve our thinking…

Understanding altruism:

Case 1: THE HELPER helps the HELPED. This person, in turn, full of gratitude and appreciation, will learn to help himself and becomes the helper of the next person to receive help.

The help of the first helper will reach thousands, appreciation will encourage him to continue helping, those who have been helped will help in turn, energy flows. In this case the HELPER is aware that it is oneself that one should help in the first place, keep well in order to help others. And the person who has been helped experiences the joy of giving and returning.

Result = ABUNDANCE, everybody wins.

Altruism misunderstood:

Case 2: The HELPER helps the HELPED. This person takes advantage of the help he receives but doesn’t learn to help others or help himself, he doesn’t put this help into practice, he doesn’t help himself or the next person who needs help, and yet he keeps asking for help until he leaves the helper drained and exhausted (which is often the case with kind-hearted souls)

Help is wasted on souls who are not aware that we are here to make energy flow, not to waste it. The helped person in this case normally does not acknowledge the effort of the helper who, in turn, does not feel encouraged to help any further (some helpers, thank God, no longer need this recognition, but they do deserve it). Such “bottomless pits” block the source of help by drying it up and leaving it incapable of helping others, and if on top of this they don’t use adequately the help they have received, the energy stops flowing and is blocked.

Result = SHORTAGE. Only a few people win, and because they don’t know how to keep what has been won, in the end it is lost… and we wonder why the world is the way it is. The person who receives should give back what he can, because even those who are most in need always have something to give back (work, attention, company, recognition) , and those who have more can lack in something. The person that doesn’t give doesn’t do so because he doesn’t want to, with few exceptions. True altruism is knowing how to keep the balance, otherwise it is energetic “vampirism”, misuse of energy, the typical cheeky opportunist or, as my mother used to say, a bloodsucker.

Responsible parents know that, before adolescence, much before I would say, kids should assume their duty to give back to society part of what they have received, and those who don’t know that is because their parents haven’t taught them to do so. The same applies to the helper who is exhausted and “vampirized”: he must learn to take better care of his energy, of his own source, and not give away what he doesn’t have.

You may ask, for example, what about the elderly who can no longer give? This statement is untrue. The elderly can give gratitude, wisdom, experience. They have spent their lives helping the generations behind them, those same generations who should know how to thank them and reciprocate with the same care.

What about the people in Africa? Anyone who has ever been to Africa will tell you that they have come back with far more than they went; new spiritual gifts in exchange for material ones….

One’s personal energy should be taken care of, should be balanced out continuously. Mother nature gives us a true example of giving and receiving. Unconditional love exists in reference to maternity at a very young age, but when the receiver starts to become aware, automatically the receptor must become a giver to balance out their “energy bill”.

When I watch Supernanny, TV’s wise fixing-mediator, doing magic with the almost single formula of establishing reasonable rules, giving tasks and responsibilities, I feel she deserves the best. That really is what setting an example is all about… and everything else is just half measures.

Except in extreme cases, such as disability, handicap or illness, people who don’t contribute to the community with their gifts, who burden others with responsibilities that don’t concern them, … do they really deserve to be helped or supported? Everyone has something to contribute.

GOOD HELP SHOULD BE MUTUAL, the other type of help, the one that does not reciprocate, in the long run is a source of disagreements, frustrations, reproaches and negative energy. The recognition of the source of help and the contribution of ones gifts to those who need them, who value them and make a good responsible use of them, will transform and improve us until we become the channel of a never ending stream of energy-in-action. That is true abundance and the true understanding of altruism, and not the other stuff.